


I have been to nothingness

by crookedspoon



Series: [std] Four Hundreds [21]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Implied/Referenced Suicide, Inspired by Poetry, M/M, POV First Person, POV Prokopenko, Suicide Pact
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-24
Updated: 2018-01-24
Packaged: 2019-03-09 02:47:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13472070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookedspoon/pseuds/crookedspoon
Summary: You had a bottle of pills but I wouldn’t let you swallow them.You saidWill you love me even more when I'm dead?—Richard Siken, "I Had a Dream About You"





	I have been to nothingness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [galateaofthewestside](https://archiveofourown.org/users/galateaofthewestside/gifts).



> For #472 "Departure" at slashthedrabble, #31 "Final" from inktober for writers and "First Person POV" at 1mw's [Give it a Whirl challenge](https://1-million-words.livejournal.com/2240130.html).
> 
> Inspired by the above quote. Make sure you took a peek at the tags before reading.

The pills rattle in their yellow plastic bottle that reads prescription – very clever – when I pluck it from your barely resisting hand. I think of board games and dice and how lucky I am you're still responsive, if barely.

You're in your jeans and shades, lying on the ground in the clearing that is your dream space, the space you dream in, the space you maybe dreamed up. The space you dreamed me up in. Dirt clings to your pale skin, so translucent in the xenon headlights. 

I had a dream once, it must have been my former life, before confessions ruined me and I spilled my guts in the sand. I dreamed I'd find you, or that you'd have found me. I dreamed that you'd have stopped me.

Or maybe it was a wish I had, in my final moments, hoping you'd be there to pull me back. Some wish that was, I know now, because you did, but not in the way I'd hoped.

I don't have that kind of power, I couldn't pull you back if you swallowed these pills, but perhaps my power is that of premonition.

You didn't have to call me. I just knew where to go, like a homing instinct that is primed on you.

I wish I could be angry with you, with who left you like this, ruined, with your guts out in the sand probably, and too ashamed to go on. You're beautiful even when you're dead inside and unable to work more poison into your system. I can't be angry when you're like this, even if I still had feelings.

I won't say you took them from me. Maybe I never had them in the first place.

But that's a lie, isn't it, or wishful thinking. Redacting the past. I must've had feelings, too many in fact, and all of them for you. That's what got me this way.

"Will you love me even more when I'm dead?" you ask as I sit down and cushion your head with my thigh. My silhouette casts a long shadow across your body.

"No," I say. You didn't want to hear it then and you don't want to hear it now. 

Not from me, anyway. 

You tug your shades down so I'll see your eyes snap open. I half-expect you to ask if I still loved you at all. I wouldn't know how to answer.

"Et tu, Proko?"

I shrug, relieved. "You're not leaving me behind."

"You'd die with me?"

Yes – yes, I would, because what life is there without you? It's hardly any life at all. "You worried no one's gonna mourn you but me?"

"Not _worried,_ but yeah, who else is gonna?"

"Pretty sure _someone's_ gonna miss your parties."

"There'll always be other parties."

"Boring ones. None that compare."

"Then our last one better be the greatest of 'em all. Gotta give us a good send-off, right?"

"Right," I say and hook my pinkie around yours. Complicit till the end.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Just a Ride" by Rishloo. Full quote: "I have been to nothingness and / Barely bothered to survive."
> 
> Kudos supply me with life. Tumblr post for reblogging convenience can be found [here](https://crookedspoonfic.tumblr.com/post/170118521010/trc-prokopinsky-departure-t-500w).


End file.
